Mackin v. State
| Decision Date | 21 October 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 20140525,20140525 |
| Citation | 387 P.3d 986,2016 UT 47 |
| Parties | Matthew A. MACKIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Utah, Appellee. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Samuel P. Newton, Kalispell, MT, for appellant.
Sean E. Reyes, Att'y Gen., Jeffery S. Gray, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee.
¶1 Matthew A. Mackin snatched a purse from an ex-girlfriend (Ex-girlfriend) believing it contained evidence of her drug use, past thefts, and current plan to steal a motor home. In an alleged attempt to deliver the evidence to the police, Mackin drove away while Ex-girlfriend dove into the car through the passenger window. Mackin began to accelerate, and the two fought over the purse while Ex-girlfriend hung halfway outside the car. Eventually, Ex-girlfriend pulled herself into the vehicle. After they exchanged blows that motivated Mackin to stop the car, the dispute spilled onto the street. Bystanders called the police. Mackin was arrested but insisted that his actions were justified because he was attempting to stop the theft of a motor home. At trial—in what, to Mackin, must seem like the ultimate example of the axiom "no good deed goes unpunished"—the jury found him guilty of, among other things, aggravated robbery. Mackin argues, first, that the trial court erred when it failed to reduce his conviction from aggravated robbery to robbery and, second, that the court abused its discretion in not granting a continuance to permit Mackin to subpoena additional defense witnesses—including Ex-girlfriend, who was unavailable at trial but whose preliminary hearing testimony the district court permitted the jury to hear. We affirm.
¶2 In May 2013, Mackin was recently released from jail. Mackin and Ex-girlfriend, high on methamphetamines, were lounging in her new boyfriend's motor home. The afternoon began to spoil when Mackin became suspicious that Ex-girlfriend was planning to steal the motor home and flee the state. Mackin found a text on Ex-girlfriend's phone stating, "I have wheels now, I'm leaving the state and I'm not kidding." He also found a map of Nevada "that had ‘X's' on it." When Mackin questioned Ex-girlfriend, she responded that it was "none of [his] business." The clincher, however, was a greeting card Mackin found that Ex-girlfriend had written to her new boyfriend—a card that reminded Mackin of something she had sent to him when he was in jail. Mackin decided that his relationship with Ex-girlfriend had run its course. He grabbed Ex-girlfriend's purse and confiscated her cell phone and motor home keys to, in his words, "just stop the theft of a motor home."
¶3 At a pretrial hearing, Ex-girlfriend testified about that afternoon's events. She reported that, after he got high, Mackin began "tearing through" the motor home looking for what he called "evidence." She testified that she "told [Mackin] he was being disrespectful and ... needed to leave." In her words, Mackin then "picked up [her] purse and ... proceeded to walk out of the motor home ... because [the purse] had the evidence in it." When she tried to stop him, he pushed her away and exited the motor home, fleeing to his car.
¶4 By the time Ex-girlfriend reached Mackin's car, he had already started the engine. Ex-girlfriend leaned through the passenger window to grab her purse. Ex-girlfriend said a "tug of war with [her] purse" ensued as Mackin "proceeded to drive off with [her body] halfway in the car." For the first five feet or so, the car rolled backward as Mackin periodically took his foot off of the brake. Ex-girlfriend claimed she "sidestepp[ed]" along with the car but that Mackin later put the car in gear and "started driving." She testified that, at that point, she was "leaning in through the window and that [her] feet were outside" the car. She also testified that "the more [they] argued while he was driving, and the more [she] tried to grab [her] purse the faster he started going." Ex-girlfriend's testimony about how long and how fast Mackin drove with Ex-girlfriend in that precarious position varies. At one point, Ex-girlfriend testified that her feet were outside of the car for roughly five to ten feet before she pulled her legs in. But she also testified that they were "halfway down the street, I'm not sure" and that "speed [was] picking up" when she was able to "pull [herself] into the car." She repeated that testimony, later stating that she was "halfway down the street when [she] got [her] body into the car," which was going "maybe 25, not even 25 miles an hour."
¶5 Once Ex-girlfriend was in the car, she kicked Mackin repeatedly in the head and, while he was hitting her back, she was "leaning against ... the passenger door." According to Mackin, her kicks caused him to "see[ ] stars" and panic, so "after she had kicked [him] almost to the point of unconsciousness," he backhanded her in the face. Ex-girlfriend then opened the car door and began sliding toward the ground, gripping her purse. Mackin said he could see Ex-girlfriend "sliding out the door onto the road as [the car] was moving ... and her head [was] about four inches off of the road." At that point, Mackin says, he "realized that the situation was getting out of control and someone was going to get hurt." So Mackin stopped the car.
¶6 The fight was not over. Once Mackin stopped the car, Ex-girlfriend landed on the ground on her back. Mackin followed her path through the car and out the door. Mackin said he "[stood] over her ... holding onto the purse," and that they "screamed a little bit back and forth." Some bystanders said they saw Mackin hit Ex-girlfriend; others said they heard her scream for help. Mackin confessed he yelled at Ex-girlfriend that she was "going to jail this time." Eventually, several bystanders intervened and called the police.
¶7 Two police officers arrived at the scene and interviewed Mackin, Ex-girlfriend, and the bystanders. One officer observed that Ex-girlfriend was upset, had "an obvious injury to the side of her face," and within half an hour was "already developing a black eye." He handcuffed Mackin and moved him to the back seat of his patrol car. The officer said that bystanders told him that Mackin "was on top of" Ex-girlfriend, that Mackin struck Ex-girlfriend, and that Ex-girlfriend "was just on the ground below [Mackin] screaming for help." The officer arrested Mackin for assaulting Ex-girlfriend. The officer testified that when he explained to Mackin that he was under arrest, Mackin became irate, "swung his legs out" of the patrol car, and began yelling at the officer, "saying that [the officer] was concealing evidence." Mackin then stood up, the officer claimed, "head butted" him, and resisted the officer's attempts to put him back into the car, all while shouting vulgarities at the officer. After he had been placed securely in the patrol car's cage, Mackin used his feet to try to break the door open. The officer said he could "see one portion of [his] vehicle separating from another." The officer also testified that Mackin, in an apparent fit of rage, "banged his head against the side window a couple of times" and even bent the interior "cage out a little bit ... but wasn't able to escape the cage." En route to the jail, Mackin told the officer that he "was going to burn" the officer, that he could take him "one-on-one," and that the officer "should be assassinated."
¶8 The State charged Mackin with aggravated assault, assault by a prisoner, and damaging a jail, each a third-degree felony. The State also charged Mackin with interference with an arresting officer, and threat of violence, each a class B misdemeanor. Shortly thereafter, the State amended count one of the information from aggravated assault to aggravated robbery.
¶9 At a preliminary hearing, the State introduced the testimony of three witnesses: Ex-girlfriend, the arresting officer, and a witness to the dispute. After hearing from the three witnesses, the judge concluded that probable cause supported the charged offenses and bound Mackin over to face trial.
¶10 Before trial, Mackin's relationship with his defense counsel soured. At a pretrial proceeding two days before trial was set to begin, Mackin's counsel explained to the court that Mackin wanted "his case continued either to prepare his own defense or to get another lawyer." When the court asked Mackin if he wanted to represent himself, Mackin stated that he wanted his counsel removed "on this particular case." Mackin reported that his trial counsel was not working on his behalf, had failed to communicate with him about "any kind of trial strategy," and had failed to subpoena certain favorable witnesses. When the district court inquired about the witnesses who had not been subpoenaed, Mackin indicated that he had a list of individuals who he wanted to testify, but that he had given his counsel "just one [name], the one I can finally come up with." Mackin said that his counsel had helped him find the name of this witness but had not done enough to subpoena the "other witnesses."
¶11 Mackin also told the court he would not be ready to try the case in two days and asked for a continuance. The court declined, explaining that it did not "plan to [continue the trial] just because [Mackin had] unnamed individual witnesses" he wanted subpoenaed. The district court also admonished Mackin, stating that his "suggesti[on] that [his trial counsel] hasn't been working on [his] behalf when [Mackin didn't] even know the names of the witnesses [he] want[ed] him to subpoena is really ... frivolous." The court cautioned Mackin that if he "intend[ed] not to try this case [in two days], [he had] better file something on [his own] behalf."
¶12 On the day trial was scheduled to commence, Mackin's trial counsel requested—and the...
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